Restaurante Los Caracoles – Casa Bofarull
Two centuries of cooking snails
A restaurant with almost 200 years of history, serving its famous snails to great celebrities of the 20th century. If you are walking through Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter and see a chicken rotisserie on a corner, you are standing at the entrance of one of the city’s oldest restaurants.
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The spirit of a 19th-century Barcelona tavern
In 1835, Agustí Bofarull and his wife founded Can Bofarull, a tavern on Carrer Nou de Sant Francesc, which began as a grocery store until their son, Felicià Bofarull, decided to serve food.
Their snails quickly became the star dish, leading customers to rename the establishment Los Caracoles in 1915.
he restaurant became so renowned that, in the early 20th century, it relocated to number 14 of Carrer Escudellers, a corner building, where they installed a chicken rotisserie, making them the most fashionable rotisserie in the city.
By the 1960s, Antoni Bofarull became one of Barcelona’s most popular figures, and the restaurant received distinguished visitors such as Ava Gardner, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Carmen Amaya, Errol Flynn, and Julio Iglesias.
After Antoni’s death in 1973, the legendary restaurant continued to attract actors such as Gérard Depardieu, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, and Robert De Niro.
More than 180 years later, Los Caracoles, a gastronomic landmark of Barcelona, continues to welcome its loyal patrons on Carrer Escudellers.
How to get to Los Caracoles?
From the Colom – Museu Marítim stop on the Red Route of the Barcelona Bus Turístic, walk up La Rambla to Carrer Escudellers, where you will not only find Los Caracoles but also another historic restaurant, Grill Room.
For the curious
- In 1936, Los Caracoles was collectivized by anarchists, although the Bofarull family remained in charge. The restaurant not only stayed open throughout the conflict but was so popular that in 1937 it was fined for having too many lights on.
